In all types of plants which produce foods, there is a need for some form of tracking in production so that it is possible, from the finished product, to obtain information as to the raw materials which were included and from whence these raw materials came. In some cases, legislation is already in place or will soon be in place requiring such tracking capabilities.
In a number of food production plants, such as within the meat industry, there have long existed sophisticated systems making for such tracking in a simple manner. For example, meat may be marked with food-approved stamps which can be read-off both manually and by machine.
As regards plants for liquid foods, such as dairies and juice factories, it has not proved as easy to establish a system of tracking. One method which has been in place for some time is the method of employing time and date stamps. Each transport in, for example, a dairy is allocated a time and date stamp, a start and stop time, when the transport took place. By comparing different time and date stamps, it is possible to create a tree structure which provides for tracking. A drawback in this system is that the method cannot be employed if a transport, for some reason, is delayed. Since delays occur more or less generally in most plants, this method is not entirely reliable.
A more recent method is the so-called batch identification method, where all units which are included in a process are allocated an identification which readily makes for tracking. This method is extensively used within the pharmaceuticals industry. A drawback is that the units which are reserved for a batch cannot be employed for anything else during the time when the batch is processed. Much greater flexibility is desirable within the dairy industry. For example, it is not uncommon to need to fill a tank, which then constitutes one batch, at the same time as the same is to be emptied, which then constitutes another batch.